Predictability

I recently read a few posts about the new slow blogging movement that’s been going around (here & here), and obviously, I’ve been on that bandwagon for quite a while now, since my last post was over a month ago.

Ahem.

Slow as my blogging is, I’m afraid that my life has not slowed down for one instant. It, is, of course, a bit less busy than during the school year, but work has kept me busy. Now that I’m a bit more into the routine of the 9-5(s) that aren’t really adequately described as 9-5(s) (they’re both very different jobs and environments doing some of the same things), it’s time to make a move back towards academia.

I have a paper that has been both put off and forgotten about for too long, thesis research to get back into. I got a stack of Sherlock adaptations out of the library this evening, wistfully thinking that maybe I would be able to watch them (perhaps I’m yearning to do another Sherlock project?). And there’s the non-academic stuff – Honors orientation schedule to think about (someone elected me president, help!) and a theatre event to work on.

Maybe this is just me writing out my to-do list (it is), but it’s also a reflection on how my summer is about to change. And if God has anything to do with it, I suspect this summer (and this year) will not be as predictable as that list in the paragraph above.

I’m not sure if I value predictability, or if I’m just unnerved enough by it that I sit there dazed in the corner while it swirls round and round my head. Given my familiarity with the latter description, I suspect that predictability does, in fact, unnerve me. Perhaps that’s why I love academia – because there’s never really boredom in the day-to-day.

Funny story though.

Once upon a time (not too long ago), I thought my life would roll along on the familiar tread of a path trod by many-a-graduating-senior before me. Not too long ago, I was sure of my biggest challenge in life, and knew exactly what lay ahead.

But not too long after that, God decided to knock me upside the head and remind me that He’s not a huge fan of predictability either (not a tame lion, after all). So for the first time in my life, I’m sitting at a place where I know the next thing I need to do – the next conversation I need to have, or the next thing I need to fill out – but that’s it. That’s literally all I know about my future right now and it’s scary. And exciting, but definitely not predictable. So while I have one more year of undergrad to go, the rest of it is up in the air, as unpredictable as life sometimes should be.

So, friend, I may not be able to tell you what those conversations are or what my next step is. But I can tell you with absolute certainty that God delights in unpredictability because it is where I am most vulnerable, and that is where He has the opportunity to be visibly powerful.

I’m Amanda. I started this blog as a 13-year-old farmgirl… and now I’m a twenty-something seminarian. I like to blog about theology, literature, Sherlock Holmes, my cat, and sometimes I reflect on this crazy journey I’ve been given. Currently based in Virginia/DC.

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